From our heads to your Internet

Extra, extra!

WHYY is reporting that by the end of the year, Philly.com, the portal site of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, will be a paid service. Brian Tierney, publisher / owner / harbinger of doom of the two papers, has suggested that this is how all papers are going to be by the end of the year. He doesn’t seem to have decided whether we’re going to have to pay a subscription service, rather like how we all used to get the paper delivered to our doorstep every day before the Internet, or if it’s going to be more like the pay-per-view service, like how we used to watch Wrestlemania on HBO, or both. In the short term, this plan could possibly bankrupt the papers, which are already on very this ice, as others may just turn to other sources to get their news, but assuming the majority of other news outlets also start charging for their reporting and opinions by the end of the year, then Tierney may have saved the papers. It remains to be seen what the future holds for the journalism industry, but this is definitely a big milestone for Philly papers.

Media week has some arguments on how online can maybe save newspaper (http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/features/843241/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH), but that’s not really anything new. Then again, most place charge for articles over 7 days old with a monthly/annual subscription, even Editor & Publisher was doing it to me when I was trying to find that WashPo article.